This book pissed me off.

First the backblurb (pay attention!):

In theory, Ellery Dunant is the last woman you'd expect to find on world-renowned playboy Larenz de Luca's to-bed list. Ellery has met Larenz's type before. There's no way a stallion like him would be interested in a plain-Jane housekeeper like her….

So why does Larenz find himself risking his cool and dropping his guard to spend the night with her?

Just one night…but for Larenz it doesn't turn out to be enough. Is his unworldly housekeeper going to be his undoing?

(Bolding is mine.)

Then, I read the first page and Ellery is described as "the waitress" before it's finally revealed that Ellery of the actual OWNER of a manor & its chatelaine. Here is news for Kate Hewitt and Harlequin: if you cook as part of your job, it doesn't make you The Cook. If you clean the office you work in just because you're not a slob, it doesn't make your occupation The Office Cleaner. I found it very sexist that Ellery was described as "the waitress" and a "housekeeper" just because she served and cleaned as the manor's owner but maybe that's just me.

But what about the story, you ask? Well, the heroine is one of those type who becomes miraculously clumsy as soon as she catches a whiff of Eau de Alphole. When she is not clumsy, she is teary. I read over half of the book before I realized that the romance was not good enough - and never was gonna be good enough - to overcome pissing me off at the beginning.

Here's hoping that next time Harlequin won't think that their readers get off thinking that every heroine in their novels has a menial job. But I'm not holding my breath.

Grade: DNF